Chapter 146 - Fall of Authority
The mont the half-wit’s finger timidly pointed upward, the leader’s face crumpled.
“Kkwek!! You little......”
The leader raised his voice as if he were about to pounce on the half-wit, but all of a sudden, the traces of his anger lessened.
“Kkwek, so you think we need to climb up too?”
The leader muttered in a drained voice.
But losing his fighting spirit lasted only a mont.
After briefly steadying his breathing, the bastard seed to grow angrier the more he thought about it, and in the end, he could not hold back and raised his voice again.
“Kkwek!! Still, siding with that human here!! Do you have any thoughts in that head or not?!”
Horrified by his attitude changing in a way that was practically manic, the half-wit avoided the charging leader and hid behind .
I pushed the half-wit back toward the leader and cald him down.
“Kkwek, he only answered what I asked. Kkwek, there’s no need to get angry.”
The bastard, who had been huffing and puffing, looked back and forth between and Ratel.
“Kkwek, so what’s your choice? Kkwek, up or down? Kkwek, which one is it?”
“Kkwek, if I have to choose, then up.”
At my unhesitating choice, the bastard’s face twisted.
“Kkwek, after we break through this passage.”
At the words I added, puzzlent appeared on the face that had twisted.
“Kkwek, what does that an? Kkwek, why do we have to do sothing so annoying?”
“Kkwek, I an exactly what I said. Kkwek, we’ll use the path above. Kkwek, but if we don’t break through below, it’s aningless.”
“Kkwek, are you joking right now? Kkwek, or are you vaguely dodging because you don’t want to side with either of us?”
The leader pointed at Ratel with his finger and demanded an answer.
Seeing his arrogant attitude return, it seed he had forgotten his place again this ti.
“Kkwek, why would I go through that much trouble?”
Whether those two were close or distant was the last problem in life that I should care about.
“Kkwek, and even if that were true, nothing would change.”
At my stiff answer, the startled leader flinched and hurriedly shut his mouth.
At that direct response with not even a speck of detour in it, the half-wit’s gaze fixed on again.
As if he were observing .
When I t those eyes without avoiding them, the half-wit turned his head as if pretending not to know.
That was one of the reasons I had never been able to let go of my suspicion toward him until the end.
The half-wit looked at with a strange frequency.
Naturally, I had thought it was wariness toward a candidate for leader.
I had also thought that his pretending to follow must have so other sche behind it.
But judging from his actions so far, the half-wit did not seem capable of showing such flawless acting.
Was there so other reason I could not understand?
No matter how much my body had turned into an orc’s, in the end, I was only in an ambiguous state, neither human nor orc.
It would probably take just as much ti to understand the values the orcs had built among themselves over long years.
Well, the conclusion was that there was nothing I could do right now.
There was no need to understand them deeply either.
Even if I simply accepted things as they were, there were more than enough ways to use those bastards.
For example, as long as I knew these three things—that what the leader desired most right now was to reclaim the leader’s position, that he would do anything for it, and that the half-wit had failed while trying to devour the leader—I could obtain what I wanted well enough.
***
“......Kkwek, I don’t know what kind of stupid nonsense this is. Kkwek, fine, then. Kkwek, I’ll knock down the rock with the half-wit and go below, so the rest of you can climb the wall or follow as you please.”
When the leader, unable to let go of his attachnt to the end, said that, Ratel clicked his tongue.
“The more you insist, the more you reveal your own bottom. You’d be better off just keeping your mouth shut.”
“Kkwek!! What am I insisting on?! Kkwek! Obviously, breaking through and passing by will be faster than climbing up!”
The leader, whose pride had been trampled out of nowhere, shrieked.
At the bastard’s struggling, Ratel did not hide the pathetic look in his eyes.
“That’s why I’m telling you to keep your mouth shut. You can’t hear anything because all you do is shout.”
“Kkwek, wh-what?”
The leader, faltering at Ratel’s criticism, shut his mouth.
Watching that, the half-wit and I also joined him.
It did not take long to understand Ratel’s words.
It was not that my ears had reacted like his.
I had simply noticed that the fishy sll of water stinging my nose was unusually strong.
“Kkwek!!”
Perhaps the half-wit had also sensed sothing strange, because he buried his face in the gap where the rock and the entrance t and began sniffing.
“Kkwek!! Kkwek!!”
The half-wit cried out while pointing at the sealed entrance.
“The mont that rock breaks, the blocked water will overflow.”
Ratel kindly explained the situation to the bastard who still had not accepted it.
“Kkwek, it also ans you and the half-wit alone won’t be able to reach the food storage on the other side.”
When I followed by adding to Ratel’s explanation, the leader’s face stiffened.
I could not tell whether he regretted his own impatience for not noticing even such a simple fact, or whether he was shocked because his sense of sll was worse than the half-wit’s.
***
“Just explain it with words. I’ll draw it in my head on my own.”
When I picked up a stone again to explain this ti, Ratel stopped .
At this point, the thought that his evaluation of my drawing skills might not have included any intention of ssing with slowly raised its head.
“Kkwek, now, this is where we are.”
Before that suspicion could grow any further, I trampled it down, pretended not to hear Ratel, and drew a long passage and the passage blocked by the rock on the ground.
“Kkwek, normally, we’d move through this path and climb the wall at the end of the passage. Kkwek, but right now, from here to here it is filled with water.”
When I pointed to the upper side of the half-cut cross-shaped path, the leader pushed his head in to follow my movent.
“Kkwek, are you saying there’s a path here?”
“Kkwek, yeah.”
It was probably filled with water like a graduated cylinder filled with liquid.
Even if we climbed up without draining the water and advanced from there, we would end up blocked in the end.
“Kkwek, if that’s the case, can’t we just drain the water and take the lower path?”
The leader grumbled as if he did not understand why we had to go through the trouble.
I pointed at the rock blocking the entrance.
“Kkwek, look carefully. Kkwek, it rolled in from inside the passage and got stuck.”
Even with the added explanation, the leader still looked as if he did not understand.
“Kkwek, I’m saying it didn’t fall from above, but ca down from the passage. Kkwek, we don’t see any other fallen rocks around it either. Kkwek, and if water suddenly overflows again, climbing up ans there’s a lower chance of being swept away.”
“Kkwe, kkwek......”
At my explanation, perhaps convinced of the direction we should take from here, the leader nodded.
Then suddenly, perhaps growing angry, the bastard lifted his head again.
“Kkwek! Then you should’ve said that from the start! Kkwek, why are you only saying it now?!”
“Kkwek, because you didn’t ask.”
“Kkwe, kkwek......!”
At a loss for words, the leader opened and closed his mouth, unable to find a reply.
I watched the bastard grow heated, then soon moved my gaze behind him.
My eyes collided with the half-wit’s as he quietly looked at .
Sothing had felt vaguely botherso since earlier, but the frustration of not being able to pinpoint it was tornting .
If I kept the cause close, I might be able to figure out what it was.
***
“Kkwek, there’s no need to smash this huge thing to pieces. Kkwek, we only need to break off a little from the top and let the water drain out.”
“Simple. I like it.”
For once, Ratel responded positively to my words.
That only made him more suspicious.
What’s with him all of a sudden?
“......Kkwek, the thod should be simple too. Kkwek, you still have the rope, right?”
Ratel took the shortened rope out of the bag.
“Kkwek, we’ll split into two groups. One side will wrap this around themselves and break the rock. Kkwek, while they do that, the rest will climb up first. Kkwek, if it looks like they’ll be swept away by the water, they’ll tug the rope twice. Kkwek, so the bastards who climbed first can pull them up.”
I planned to make the hole as slowly as possible, but there was still always the chance that sothing could go wrong.
The water currents, already moving wildly as they pleased, had a record of screwing us over.
If we wanted to avoid getting caught up in that, we needed so kind of safety asure.
“How are you going to decide who stays and who climbs first?”
Ratel asked as soon as I finished explaining.
“Kkwek, that’s already decided.”
I pointed at the half-wit.
“Kkwek, the half-wit and I will stay and clear the rock. Kkwek, you climb the cliff first with the leader. Kkwek, so if sothing happens, you can pull the half-wit and up.”
“Kkwek?!”
“Kkwek!! That’s absurd!!”
“You went through all that and still think that lineup makes sense?”
Even the two orcs, who had been quietly listening to my conversation with Ratel, joined in and opposed my plan.
It beca a three-on-one fight, but I had no intention of backing down either.
“Kkwek, where else would you find a role division more efficient than this? Kkwek, even you don’t think leaving the leader and half-wit together makes sense, do you?”
When I gestured with my eyes toward the two orcs, Ratel, who had been about to argue, closed his mouth for a mont.
Even you think leaving sothing to those two bastards is completely unreliable, don’t you?
On top of that, the leader already had a magnificent record.
It would also be troubleso if he got caught in the current again and had to climb back up again this ti.
“Kkwek, and it’s not exactly efficient for the leader to stay and clear the rock either.”
“Why are you leaving out the option of and the half-wit opening the waterway?”
“Kkwek, that sounds good. Kkwek, this ti, there’s also the fun of predicting where the half-wit will stick his head.”
At Ratel’s gaze moving where I pointed, the half-wit flinched.
“......”
Perhaps recalling the half-wit’s record, Ratel shut his mouth.
“Kkwek, or there is also the thod of going down alone.”
“What about the option of going down alone?”
“Kkwek, obviously not.”
At my firmness, Ratel twitched one eyebrow as if asking for the reason.
“Kkwek, don’t think about leaving between those two and going off.”
Just one half-wit was already more than enough to deal with. Two of them?
At the thought of being tornted from both sides by the half-wit, who followed to a strange degree, and the leader, who glared at that with displeasure, I already felt as if I had aged ten years.
Looking at my face, which was thoroughly sick of it, Ratel gave a small laugh.
What are you laughing at?
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, but Ratel did not erase the trace of laughter from his mouth.
“Weren’t you planning to give the ‘bait’ role and stay here? I was wondering what confidence you had to say you’d stay behind when you’re this disgusted even now.”
His tone was full of sarcasm, but it did not particularly bother .
Because there was sothing wrong in what he said.
“Kkwek, it doesn’t matter how long your ‘role’ takes.”
When I turned my gaze, I saw the half-wit looking down beneath the cliff and the leader scolding the bastard.
By that point, only one of those two would be left anyway.
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